From: David Engster <deng@randomsample.de>
To: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Better help support for EIEIO classes and methods
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:47:55 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87txprhq5g.fsf@engster.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <jwv8v744v8v.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> (Stefan Monnier's message of "Sun, 03 Feb 2013 22:28:41 -0500")
Stefan Monnier writes:
>> In Emacs proper, if you use describe-function on an EIEIO class
>> constructor like `auth-source-backend', you will get
>> auth-source-backend is a Lisp function. as the first line, which is
>
>> not very helpful. If you know that this is actually a class
>> constructor, you can at least call eieio-describe-class or
>> eieio-describe-constructor, which will give you a much more detailed
>> description, but is still missing one essential feature: a link to the
>> filename where this class is defined, which quickly brings you to the
>> correct class definition. This is even more important for methods,
>> which can have several implementations depending on the class they're
>> called on.
>
> To a large extent the first line is not that important since you can add
> the missing info in the docstring itself. Could you give more details of
> the things that can't be overcome this way?
An example: Start up with emacs -Q and eval
(require 'semantic/db)
(require 'semantic/db-global)
Then do a describe-function on semanticdb-file-table. You'll get this:
,----
| semanticdb-file-table is a Lisp function in `db.el'.
|
| (semanticdb-file-table &rest LOCAL-ARGS)
|
| From OBJ, return FILENAME's associated table object.
`----
Now, this is pretty misleading since there are actually two
implementations of this function, which will become clear if you use
eieio-describe-generic, which will give you this:
,----
| semanticdb-file-table is a generic function with only primary methods.
|
| Documentation:
| From OBJ, return FILENAME's associated table object.
|
| Implementations:
|
| `semanticdb-project-database' :PRIMARY (obj filename)
| From OBJ, return FILENAME's associated table object.
|
| Defined in `db.el'
|
|
| `semanticdb-project-database-global' :PRIMARY (obj filename)
| From OBJ, return FILENAME's associated table object.
|
| Defined in `db-global.el'
`----
This is already pretty good, but is still lacking an IMO crucial
feature: the filenames 'db.el' and 'db-global.el' are not
links. However, just do
(add-hook 'temp-buffer-show-hook 'eieio-help-mode-augmentation-maybee t)
and call eieio-describe-generic again, and you'll get links which will
bring you to the correct implementations.
So there are two problems here:
1) I think it should not be necessary for the user to explicitly call
eieio-describe-generic; the normal describe-function should already show
this information. As I've written, in CEDET upstream we do this through
a defadvice.
2) How can eieio-help-mode-augmentation-maybee integrated into the
current setup?
And on a more general note: is the current implementation maybe
considered too hack'ish? Instead of using symbol properties for storing
the method's locations, should this rather be supported through
load-history?
-David
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2013-02-04 18:47 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-02-03 15:42 Better help support for EIEIO classes and methods David Engster
2013-02-04 3:28 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-02-04 18:47 ` David Engster [this message]
2013-02-04 19:53 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-02-05 21:23 ` David Engster
2013-02-06 14:45 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-02-06 16:19 ` David Engster
2013-02-06 19:16 ` Stefan Monnier
2013-02-10 15:21 ` David Engster
2013-02-11 3:57 ` Stefan Monnier
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